The Mysterious Matter of the Missing Mannequin
by RillaOfIngleside
Summary: Taking place not long after the events in Dorothy L Sayers’ “Unnatural Death”, this story involves another case for Charles Parker and Lord Peter. But this time, Lady Mary gets involved in the detection, too, both to Parker’s discomfort and delight.
1. 1

_Author's Note: this started off as a chapter for my very slow-burn Lady Mary/Charles Parker romance story, A Long Courtship, but it quickly gathered a life of its own. In case anyone should want to read both, this adventure would occur between chapters 4 and 5 of that story._

_I put the "whodunnit" aspect in to provide a reason for Charles and Mary to spend time together and get out of the sad impasse they had got into, and the experiment has been enough to put me off ever dabbling in that genre again! I can only apologise to anyone who reads this expecting a decent detective story. But it contains, at least, plenty of Charles and Mary pining._

"Good morning, Peter", Lady Mary Wimsey said genially as Bunter ushered her into her brother's library. Lord Peter had been sitting happily perusing a recent acquisition to his library (a very early edition of Dante's _Vita Nuova_) and finishing his morning coffee. "I want you to detect something for me."

"Good morning", Lord Peter responded. "Have a cup and sit awhile. Fill my ear with the nectar of your merry girlish prattle."

"Certainly not", his sister retorted. "I've a hideously busy day ahead. I'm just here to tell you what I'd like you to investigate so that you can get on with it."

Lord Peter looked at her pitifully. "I'm having a holiday," he said. "I've only just finished with that Leahampton poisoning affair. Detect it yourself. You've quite a good head for that kind of thing, you know, in your womanly way. Remember the jolly old time we had with your friend's Uncle's will."

"I've also got far better things to do, in my womanly way", responded Mary, acerbically. "My transformation of Mrs Hemshawe's house was so admired that I've a house on Sloane Square to see to as we speak, and the downstairs of the Glasspole Manor in Suffolk clamouring for its turn next. And that's alongside the clothes designing lark."

Peter noted the suppressed note of pride in Mary's voice as she spoke. "Well done, Polly", he said, lightly. "Victim of your own stellar success, eh? But look here, why don't you pop in and see Charles Parker? He's the one who really gets these things done, you know."

Peter's voice was carefully bland as he made the suggestion, remembering an incident from the night he'd spent sharing digs with Charles at the inn at Crofton, during the poisoning case they had concluded last month. A serving boy had run up to their rooms with a telephone message for Charles from the Yard whilst that respectable man had been washing and shaving. Rather than popping out to receive the message and compensate its bearer in a half-dressed state, as Peter would have done, Charles had called to his friend to flick through the wallet in his jacket for a tip for the boy. Doing so, Peter had accidentally found, as well as the change he was looking for, a well-thumbed photograph of his own sister wedged behind Charles's notebook. It looked like the one that Charles had been given for investigative purposes when in France pursuing inquiries related the the death of Dennis Cathcart two and half years earlier. Peter had whistled softly and said to himself "So it's like that, is it? Poor devil." Whether or not Charles ever realised that Peter might have seen the photograph, Peter didn't know. It was, of course, quite out of the question for either man to ever speak of it.

"I can't", Mary replied crisply. "I mean, it isn't a question of any crime having been committed. Besides, if anyone needs a holiday don't you think it might be he rather than you? I shouldn't think he's lounging in silk pyjamas drinking coffee at a quarter to ten in the morning." Her voice was light, too, but there was a note of steel in it which warned Peter that no further discussion on that subject would be had.

"You oppress and discourage me with your work ethic, Mary", he replied. "But let's have it. What, as our medical friends are wont to inquire, seems to be the trouble?"

"It's to do with my dressmaker", Mary began, promptly. "There's a woman called Mrs Schmidt, who runs an outfit near Oxford Street. I've got friendly with her and she's helping me frightfully with my designs. Now, when you design and run the things up, you can use a dressmaker's dummy, of course. But when you're finishing them off, you want to try them on a real person and see how they fit and how they hang when the person moves and all that. For the blouses I've designed - the ones with the swooping sailor collars, I wish I'd brought a sketch with me - it's important to get the cut of the neckline just right, because of it being cut quite low down the clavicle. You couldn't have it cut too loose there, of course."

"Rather not", agreed Peter, virtuously.

"Mrs Schmidt has a few girls who work for her as mannequins, showing off her own designs to buyers, you know. And there's one called Lucy who's been modelling the blouses for me, and the dresses I designed before that. Only last time I was there, a different girl, came to model the blouses. I asked Mrs Schmidt what had happened to Lucy, and she said that I must be mistaken, and this girl was Lucy, the same Lucy who had always been the one modelling for me. I pressed her but her English (which is normally top notch) suddenly went bad. I asked the girl herself when Mrs Schmidt went off to do something else, and she went red as a lobster and refused to say a word."

"Well, Polly" Peter said, "isn't it possible you're mistaken and this really is the same girl? Or perhaps the real Lucy left in some disgrace or without giving notice and Mrs Schmidt didn't like to talk of it?"

"I certainly haven't mixed them up", Mary replied energetically. "The new one's shoulders were broader, and it affects the hang, you know. It struck me as odd, that's all, because Mrs Schmidt is normally such a nice, candid sort of person. And I wasn't cross about it - it's rather useful to try different mannequins if you want to generalise the designs. So it was so strange that she should lie."

"Hmmm. It doesn't give me much to go on, but I've made fires with damper wood before now in my glorious career. What does the first and, as it may be, the only Lucy look like?"

"Tall-ish, straight dark hair, fair skin and, as you know, narrow-ish shoulders. Slender, as all these mannequin girls are, of course, not thin. A very jolly, engaging way and a sweet smile. I liked her, although of course we never talked much. I shouldn't like to think anything untoward had happened to her."

"What a perfectly hopeless description! Sweet smile, indeed. You're sure she hadn't any helpfully distinctive scars? Oh, well. Note down Mrs Schmidt's address, and I'll toddle round and see what I can see."

Mary rose from the sofa and kissed him lightly on the top of his head. "Thanks awfully", she said. In the door, she paused. "Peter", she began, hesitantly.

He raised inquiring eyes to hers, but she seemed to have thought better of it. She slipped out of the door.

Peter turned thoughtfully back to the delicate leaves of his fine edition of Dante's poetic account of his transformative experience of faithful but hopeless love. The telephone rang. Bunter answered and announced "Detective-Inspector Parker, my Lord."

"Is it, by Jove", said Lord Peter. "Do you know, Charles, I was just reading Dante and thinking about you."

Resolutely efficient and incurious, Parker replied "Hullo, Peter. I've a fishy-looking corpse on my hands which I thought you might fancy a look at."

"Is it a young lady with straight dark hair, narrow-ish shoulders and a smile which, under different circumstances in which it was still alive, might be described as sweet?" Peter asked.

"I'm afraid not", said Parker, cheerfully. "Sorry I can't produce them to order. This one's a middle-aged man. He was found on a train early this morning by the unsuspecting souls who got on to clean it before its first trip of the day. The conductor in charge of it yesterday swears blind there wasn't a passenger, dead or alive, left on it before he closed it up. We're waiting for Bannon to come and opine on cause of death. I've said I'll meet him at Victoria station and I'm on my way there now."

"I shall dress appropriately and explore this piscatorial corpse with you, old man."

"Good egg," Parker replied, and rang off.

—————

Suitably attired, Lord Peter met Detective-Inspector Parker at Victoria station.

"Thanks for coming along," Mr Parker said as Peter wafted in a suitably lordly manner past the policemen guarding the train in question. Parker was hot and irritable in his dark suit, and wanted to get back to the case he had previously been on the brink of cracking. The railway staff whose services and passengers had suffered disruption threw him many outraged looks (although as Parker pointed out tersely, it wasn't as though there weren't plenty of delays every day on the railway caused by the ineptitude of the same staff who so resented this one). Lord Peter, by contrast, was rubbing his hands appreciatively.

"Well, Charles. What have we here?"

"Train locked last night by conductor and, opened by the cleaner this morning - she has the keys, or course. Found him sitting by the window with his head a bit turned away, so it was a nasty shock when she shook him to try to wake him."

"Cause of death?"

"Banon's looking at him now, but it looks like asphyxiation to me. From the evidence currently available, that is", Parker added, his reflex of caution asserting itself.

The men stood over the body as the medical man made his examination. "Good suit, not spectacular. Quite new shoes which may give us a lead. Nothing in his pockets except this". Mr Parker opened his hand to show a scrap of red fabric. "We've got the word out for missing persons. The train had come in from Brighton, stopping at all the usual places. We're appealing for passengers to tell us whether they saw anything untoward."

"Hmmm. Another one with not much to go on. But it's a corker. How does a man asphyxiate himself alone on a train?"

"If it was asphyxiation", Parker put in.

"It was", the medical man spoke from behind them. "Post-mortem will confirm it. I'll send it through to the Yard, Mr Parker."

Mr Parker raised his hat with polite thanks. "Was that window open?" Peter nodded to an upper window not far from the corpse. Parker nodded. They both contemplated it. "Our man couldn't have got in through there, of course, though he is thin", Parker pointed out, "but could a murderer - and if so, what type of murderer?"

"You couldn't", Peter responded "I don't think even I could, weedy in comparison though I am. But a child, or a small woman. Even a tall woman provided she wasn't powerfully built. Mary could do it", he said thoughtfully.

Parker went suddenly still. "Sorry, old man", Peter said, though without any clear reason as to why mentioning his sister's name should be cause for apology. "I saw her this morning so she was in my mind. Fear not, I'm not about to pop her on the list of suspects."

"Hmm, well. But this fellow had to get _onto _the train, you know, if he really wasn't on it when the conductor locked up." Mr Parker was leaning across the corpse as though he were attempting to awkwardly embrace it, feeling around down the sides of the upholstery. "I thought I saw a glint - here! Look at this. I rather fancy that this is how he got on it." In the detective-inspector's hand was a small key which, when tried, turned the lock in the door of the train carriage.

———-


	2. 2

Mr Parker spent the day pursuing inquiries into missing persons across London and Sussex, as well as tying up his handling of stolen goods case. He was well pleased with the outcome of the latter, and inclined to be philosophical about the limited success of the former. Policemen had been around various shoe shops in London making enquiries to no avail - they really were such ordinary shoes and the appearance of the corpse had also been very ordinary.

But the next morning brought reports of a missing man from Dagenham and by the afternoon the corpse was identified by a sharp and sly-looking wife, apparently put out rather than broken-hearted, as Paul Spicer, a commercial traveller for a couple of fancy goods firms. "Mostly fabrics and leather goods", Mrs Spicer sniffed rather showily. She had been genuinely shocked by when confronted with her husband's lifeless body, but back in the glow of attention and sympathy the shock had trickled away to be replaced by a sense that her husband's demise was really a thing that had happened to _her, _rather than to him, after all.

She explained that Paul Spicer had various routes he travelled for his work, as far as Buckingham sometimes, but that none of them took him south of London out of Victoria station. He hadn't been working last night, at any rate. He had gone to the Black Horse in Dagenham to meet a friend, and simply not returned. She had assumed he'd made a night of it, so made no report until a full day and another night had elapsed. Yes, he sometimes did stay out all night. She was used to it because he so often stayed away for days and nights at a time travelling for work - he'd just come back from four nights away, in fact. No, she didn't know which friend he'd been meeting. She didn't much care for his public house friends. (Another sniff). No, she didn't know whether his life had been insured. Perhaps the kind policeman - Mr Parker, was it? - could help her find out? Mrs Spicer asked with a sidelong beseeching glance. The kind Mr Parker smoothly but hastily passed the sniffing widow on to a subordinate.

"I'd travel a lot too, if I had a wife like that", he remarked (less than kindly) to Lord Peter, as they companionably smoked their after dinner pipes by the large open window in the library at 110A Piccadilly. Parker had had removed his tie, loosened his collar and rolled up his shirt sleeves as he recounted to an unruffled Peter his afternoon's discoveries.

"She's got an alibi for the night in question though - PM said time of death was between midnight and four am, by the way, and that he had something in the bloodstream. Not poison; some form of barbiturate, but in a small quantity, like you get with a sleeping draught. Banon doesn't think it would have done more than make him sleepy."

"Anyway, Mrs Spicer spent the evening sitting with her next door neighbour, and in her words drank a little more stout than was good for her, so slept there, too. She went home at about half past seven to make breakfast for her husband, only he hadn't come home. The story of a middle-aged woman so drunk she can't walk back to her own bed one door away doesn't quite sit right with me, but the neighbour seems a sensible person and I've no reason to doubt her evidence. My feeling was perhaps Mrs Spicer simply preferred not to be home when her husband returned from the public house. I've seen enough husbands of various types over the years to find that easy enough to credit.

Anyway, we've checked out Mr Spicer's movements so far as we can. He came back from his four days of travel the day before the murder, and spent the day at home. Seems to have walked out to buy cigarettes and a paper about midday and then back home again until after dinner, telling his wife he was off to the Black Horse. Nobody at the Black Horse remembers seeing him that night, though they know him well enough in general. Not a man you'd leave alone with your daughter, the barmaid said.

The Spicers' neighbour saw him leave the house about half an hour before Mrs Spicer came round for the evening and said he was whistling cheerfully, swinging a bag over his shoulder."

"A bag, eh?" ruminated Lord Peter.

"Yes. That struck us, too, of course. She couldn't describe it any better than dark and mid-sized and Mrs Spicer said it must be one of those he takes with fabric samples when he travels. She doesn't keep track of those or really know whether one's missing. But it's somewhere all right, and it wasn't on that train."

"I wonder" - Lord Peter began, but at that moment Bunter opened the door. "Lady Mary", he announced, unnecessarily, for Lady Mary was already in the middle of the room by the time he had finished. She stopped short in the middle of removing her hat and gloves as she stared at Charles, and then cast a reproving glance at Bunter. Bunter smiled self-deprecatingly as he shut the door behind him. He had long privately felt, although wild horses would never have dragged any criticism of his employer's sister from his lips, that perhaps Lady Mary's habit of entering Lord Peter's rooms without waiting to be told whether it was convenient at just that time or who else was there, lacked a certain old-fashioned courtesy.

Mr Parker sprang up. He was a broad-shouldered and powerfully built man, and Peter would not have expected him to be able to make the movement from his chair with quite such lightning speed. Peter eyed his friend somewhat pityingly as, once standing, Parker appeared to lose the power of speech. He had not seen or communicated with Lady Mary since they had met by chance just before Christmas, many months ago.

Lady Mary was little better than Mr Parker in the surprise encounter. She did manage to say, in a rather high voice, "Good evening, Mr Parker", but then stood as a statue, frozen in the act of removing a glove from one hand with the other, staring at Charles.

"Lady Mary", appeared to be the best that Charles could manage in response. Seconds ticked noisily by. Mary stared at Charles's forearms, partly because it helpfully avoided having to meet his eye, but also because she was suddenly struck by the vast stores of masculine beauty which part of a limb can contain. She had never given thought to men's arms one way or another before that moment, but she found her lips parting on some spontaneous whim of their own as she looked at the broad and muscular lines of Charles's left forearm.

At length Peter could stand it no longer. "Sorry to interrupt the unceasing torrent of jolly badinage, and all that. Care for a drink, Mary? Do sit down, Charles, old man. You're making me nervous."

They both sat down, and the fact of movement seemed to break some of the tension. Peter poured Mary a whisky and soda, and opened the remaining window in the library. "Terribly hot in here all of a sudden, ain't it?" He remarked, drily.

"Well, Mary, I suppose you've come to check that I have not been idle these past two days in your affair? "Heaven forefend," I hear you cry, "that any such unworthy suspicions about my endlessly energetic brother should enter my sweet, golden head!" Well, I -"

"Don't be an ass, Peter", Mary said, with something like her normal spirit. "But yes, have you found anything out?"

Seeing Parker rise to go, Peter said "Don't go, Charles, unless you want to. I don't think there's anything about this business from which we need shield your delicate ears - is there, Mary?"

"Of course not."

Lord Peter briefly sunmarised the concerns as Mary had put them to him two days earlier, for Mr Parker's benefit. "Have I left anything out, Mary?" he asked, when he was done.

"Only the point about how the first girl - Lucy - has much narrower shoulders, I think. It's important because it shows that I couldn't possibly have been mistaken. The blouse hung completely differently." Mary added the last sentences a little defensively, thinking that the whole thing must sound absurd and petty to the ears of Mr Parker.

"No indeed," her brother replied, courteously. "Wouldn't dream of suggesting it." And then he began his account of his doings.

"Yesterday, when not considering the vexing problems posed by corpses on trains, I consulted my friend Miss Climpson as to the best way to gain access to the hearts and minds of dressmakers. She procured, if I may use the word, for me the services of a young lady with whom I popped round to Oxford Street this morning in the role of Lady Mary Wimsey's rakish but good-hearted brother and his protégée du jour who was to be whisked away to Paris for a weekend and needed to be attired suitably. Mrs Schmidt admirably controlled her obvious disapproval and fitted out young Miss Morley (this being the young lady's name) in great style while I chatted away fatuously to the mannequin girls. One introduced herself somewhat forwardly but very charmingly as Lucy, before being swept away by Mrs Schmidt to perform some task the particulars of which were not made clear. Whilst I settled the account and talked in proud and lengthy tones to Mrs Schmidt about my clever sister, Miss Morley befriended one of the other mannequin girls, a sensible and upright young lady by the name of Clare Jenkins. They went out to tea after the shop closed, ostensibly under be pretence of Miss Morley finding out about work as a mannequin (the field in which she was taken to be engaged being well known, of course, to produce only the most intermittent of incomes). Miss Morley submitted this report to me with impressive speed shortly afterwards."

Lord Peter picked up a hand-written document from the desk.

"Clare Jenkins tells me that she has been at Mirs Schmidt's for 5 years, and that Lucy Watson has been there for 3 months. By good fortune, though, the girls grew up in houses more or less opposite each other and have known each other loosely all their lives. Indeed, it's through Miss Jenkins that Lucy was first recommended to Mrs Schmidt. Miss Jenkins says she regrets this generous action now, because Lucy has proved herself not at all improved by the two years she has recently spent in "that place with such a funny breakfast name" - we established that she meant to refer to Towcester - in service at a big house. Lucy apparently left London as a timid and pleasant young girl and came back with "a bit too much about her", in Miss Jenkins's words. She had a fancy for going into the mannequin business because she thought it was glamorous, but she is reported as having gone from bad to worse, chucking a reliable young man called Fred who had a decent job on the railways and had faithfully waited the two years for the affections of men "old enough to know better". If you will forgive the observation, Lord Peter, I think Miss Jenkins may have the glad eye for Fred herself. Anyway, she couldn't, or wouldn't, say more about these older men though I somehow got the impressions that she may have been exaggerating a bit out of resentment. You know, when you dislike someone and want to show them in a bad light so that others do too."

"Miss Jenkins said she was sure _she _didn't know whether Lucy had been at work on Monday, because she hadn't been herself. She has Mondays off, though Lucy doesn't usually. But her view was that Mrs Schmidt has a soft spot for Lucy and may well have given her an extra day."

Lord Peter turned over the paper. "That's it, other than the price of the tea and cakes."

"Yes, but how are we to know it was the real Lucy that you saw? That's the point, isn't it, rather than her taste in men."

"We can't say, my girl, unless we have something better to go on than 'a sweet smile'", said her brother, sternly. "Miss Morley said she thought that Lucy's shoulders were perhaps less broad than the other dark mannequin we saw, but wouldn't commit herself further than that and I don't blame her. Jolly hard to preserve a cool exterior when one's having to squint sideways trying to measure girls' shoulders all over the shop, what?"

"I shall go back tomorrow", Mary said. "I'd like to anyway, to collect the latest batch of dresses and check on the blouses. If the real Lucy is there, so much the better. But I wish I knew why Mrs Schmidt hadn't lied in that peculiar way."

Unexpectedly, Mr Parker spoke. "Perhaps I might accompany you, Lady Mary? I can't in conscience spare long on this, because it's almost certainly a coincidence, but Peter's account there interested me strangely. We're presently no closer to ascertaining who was with my Mr Spicer when he got onto that train, which is what I really want to know. But we have found out that the travels he'd just returned from took in the town of Towcester, and that he'd stayed near there on Monday night in the company of a dark young lady who he presented unconvincingly as his wife, and with whom he seemed much preoccupied."

"Well, but that's hardly a crime, Charles, even by your discouragingly exacting standards" Peter interjected. "Dash it all, I expect these commercial travelling chappies do these things all the time."

Patiently, Mr Parker continued. "An enterprising young constable mentioned that an elderly man living at Heathencote, a village a few miles away, had been found dead in his bed on Tuesday morning. Nobody thought anything of it at first, apparently, but the doctor certifying death was uneasy. A second doctor confirmed this morning that it was indeed asphyxiation, such as could only have been produced by external pressure. Small but definite sign of bruising round the mouth and nose and so on. Forgive me, Lady Mary." He didn't look at her.

"And you think -"

"I don't think anything, in particular" Parker said, firmly. "I've many more inquiries to run down before I start thinking things of a definite nature. But perhaps it wouldn't hurt to see what your friend Lucy was really about on Monday, you know, and whether she's ever met Mr Spicer."

"And who she worked for in Towcester", Lord Peter agreed.

"But I only wanted you to find out whether Lucy was all right, not to start suspecting her of running around the countryside of Buckinghamshire murdering elderly gentlemen", Mary said, in dismay. "That's why I went to Peter, you see, Mr Parker. I've never thought there was any question of crime or anything, just an odd lie, and it all seeemed so silly."

"Silliness, of course, being no bar to bringing matters to the door of long-suffering brothers", added Peter, cheerfully. "Well, as Charles said, there's probably nothing in it. Plenty of people in Bucks to commit all the jolly old murders over there, after all, and we've no reason to think Lucy ever clapped eyes on Mr Spicer, either. Easiest thing is to ask a couple of questions and rule her out so that Charles can hunt down the real criminals without the shadow of the dressmaker's dummy hanging over him."

"Of course I'd be delighted if you came with me tomorrow, Mr Parker", Mary said politely, after a pause. Charles murmured his thanks and they arranged to meet at half past ten the following day, all without looking each other in the eye.

Charles looked at his watch. "I'll pop back to the Yard and see if anything's come of our many appeals for information on anything unusual around Victoria station on Monday. Until tomorrow, Lady Mary. Cheerio, Peter. What have you in mind to do?"

"I too suspect a hare's nest", Lord Peter replied, "but I have the luxury of not having to account for my time, you know, and a fancy for escaping the city in this heat. I might tootle down in the motor car to Heathencote tomorrow, just for a jaunt."

Parker nodded briefly, and departed. A silence fell in Lord Peter's library. Awkwardly, Lord Peter said "Mary, may I ask-?"

"You may not", replied his sister, decidedly. "Peter, let's go to see a show."

With no comment other than a raised eyebrow, Peter agreed and within minutes they were in a taxi heading to the theatres of Drury Lane.

——————-

The next morning, fresh from bath and breakfast after a late night seeing Mr Coward's new play, Lady Mary was called for by Mr Parker. Mr Parker had been at work for several hours by half past ten, and had slept very fitfully the night before, but the freshness of the morning before the summer heat rose up was pleasant, and they walked down to Oxford Street together. Though they didn't touch, even to shake hands, they were acutely conscious of each other's bodies at every moment. It was as though there were a heat, or a magnetic pull of some sort, emanating from Charles to which every one of her senses responded, reflected Mary, and she felt she would have known exactly where he were in relation to her even if she had closed her eyes. But she pulled herself together. Charles was helpfully formally dressed again, with no distracting forearms to contend with, and presently found herself remembering why she had so enjoyed his company when they first became friendly, before she had found herself so unaccountably flustered by his presence, and before that flustered feeling was overlaid by disappointment at the sad impasse their relationship seemed to have arrived at. She told him about her recent troubles with the decoration of rooms for a colour-blind but very opinionated lady, and they were talking and laughing like the old friends that, of course, they really were by the time they arrived at Mrs Schmidt's establishment.

All the same, there was enough of the previous night's heat and tension still between them that when Lady Mary introduced Mr Parker at Mrs Schmidt's as "a friend of the family", a couple of the mannequins exchanged knowing looks and stifled giggles. "He's shown such a kind interest in my designs", Mary continued, blushing prettily (she inwardly cursed herself, but of course the credibility of the story was increased by her blushes and, had she but known it, by the way Mr Parker was looking at her as she spoke) "I thought you wouldn't mind if we showed him the blouses and the piece-dresses, Mrs Schmidt".

Mrs Schmidt at once bustled about, delighted, corralling three of the girls into the changing room so that they could model the items in question. "Seems to me e'd rather it was 'er ladyship doing the modelling, if you know wot I mean", whispered Lucy, to annoyed tutting from Clare Jenkins and giggles from the other girl.

Once the clothes had been duly admired, at great length, and Mary was busy discussing patterns for production on a larger scale with Mrs Schmidt's assistant, Mr Parker discretely asked Mrs Schmidt for a quiet word. In her private office, he mildly told her who he was, and she was not altogether surprised. Her practiced eye had immediately lighted on his suit and found it of surprisingly low quality for a friend of the Wimseys. They spoke softly for ten minutes.

When he emerged, showily thanking Mrs Schmidt for explaining the dressmaking business to him, and jovially expressing amazement at how complicated it all was and how clever Mary was to understand it all, he exchanged a quick glance with Lady Mary. She nodded briefly, asked Mrs Schmidt to send on the finished dresses, and they took their leave.

"Well, Lady Mary?" he asked gently, as they strolled out into the sunshine.

"That's her, all right. And the other one, the one Mrs Schmidt pretended was Lucy that day, but she's called Grace really, she was there, too. They are similar, physically - other than the shoulders - but their manner is quite different. There's no way I could be mistaken. I spoke to Mrs Schmidt's assistant briefly about them. She said that in her view Mrs Schmidt doesn't like Lucy any more than the others- rather less, actually, she says Mrs Schmidt's always jumpy and cross when Lucy's around - so I don't know why Miss Jenkins should have thought she had a soft spot for her."

"I know why", Charles said, grimly. "She's being blackmailed. Lucy found out something which Mrs Schmidt feels would discredit her if widely known in her second week working there, and she's been using it to her advantage ever since - getting extra money, taking home the dresses, and, most recently, telling Mrs Schmidt that she had better give her an extra day off on Monday - and not tell anyone about it if she was asked. Mrs Schmidt reluctantly agreed, and she assumes it's because Lucy wanted to make a clandestine assignation with a man. She hadn't expected any of the customers to notice - they seldom do look at the mannequins as people at all, she said - and she says panicked when you asked."

"Yes, it would have been so much better if she'd just said that Lucy was busy wearing something else with pins all over it so that she couldn't slip out of it", said Mary, thoughtfully. "She's obviously not a practiced liar. Charles, what did she do?"

Mr Parker was momentarily struck by a wildly inappropriate joy at hearing his Christian name on her lips again, though she gave no indication that she knew she'd said it. Smothering a grin, he said in measured tones which betrayed nothing of what he felt "I'd much rather not tell you, you know. The normal convention about confidentiality of police information don't quite apply when a member of the Wimsey family assists in an investigation, of course, but I promised Mrs Schmidt I'd tell nobody if I didn't have to. Would it help if I assure you that, in the unlikely scenario where I had either ladies tailoring business to put her way, or a personal friendship with her, nothing I've heard would lead me to hesitate in doing so?"

Mary smiled up at him. "That does help, though I'm still consumed by vulgar curiosity", she said frankly. "Will you tell me when we're old and grey, long after Mrs Schmidt has died?"

"I can see no objection to that," Mr Parker smiled back. His smile was mostly for the sudden blissful vision her words called up of some other world where he and Lady Mary Wimsey would grow old together. They passed a Lyons Corner House. Charles looked at his watch. "I really should get back to the Yard," he frowned, "but I'll have to have lunch, anyway. Will you join me?"

"Lunch at noon!" Mary exclaimed. "I've only just had breakfast. But I'd love a cup of tea." They spent a happy half an hour discussing matters quite unrelated to blackmail or murder, as though the strange tension which had overwhelmed their relationship since Christmas had never been - or at the very least, as though it could be easily tamed so as to allow them to be friends. When they were back out on the street, where Mr Parker could be sure that there was no chance of being overheard, he said "I'll see if I can get through to Peter when I get back to the Yard. The police up there have probably got to the bottom of the Heathencote murder and it's nothing to do with our affair at all. But Mrs Schmidt gave me a photograph of Lucy, just in case. And the information about Lucy taking the dresses away was very instructive. She took one of the dresses of your design, you know. The ones with little strips of fabric sewn on in sort of cascading layers. The one in red and yellow."

"Oh yes, the piece-dresses. Well, I suppose it's a dubious sort of compliment that she liked it well enough to steal though I can't imagine where a girl like her would have to wear it to. Oh, to think that this whole beastly business began because I thought she was sweet!"

"Well, she may turn out to be nothing worse than a thief and a blackmailer," Charles said, encouragingly. "I say, Mary" (he betrayed no sign in voice or speech that he was mentally holding his breath at the attempt to follow her lead and reassert the old Christian-name intimacy, and she showed no sign of having noticed), "this sort of thing _is _pretty beastly, in lots of ways, particularly when it involves people one knows. Well, you know that, of course" he added, flushing rather. "Shall we leave you out of it from now on - not tell you what we discover, and all that, I mean?"

"I'm not sure. It seems rather feeble to want to wash my delicate hands of it because it might be bit more serious than I'd imagined, doesn't it? No, keep me involved, at least a little - and certainly if you think I can help."

"You sound like Peter," Charles grinned. "Right you are. May I escort you somewhere? You sure? Thanks awfully for the help. I'll be in touch." He pressed her hand fleetingly- so fleetingly that he hadn't time to lose his nerve - and strode off towards Embankment with the rapid step of a man who has a lead to follow. A few steps away, he turned and said "Lady Mary? I'm in no position to know anything about it, of course, but I thought the clothes were really splendid." Mary smiled and, still smiling, watched him down the street.

————

When Charles was out of sight, she turned and walked towards the underground station, forcing her thoughts towards the problems of Lady Brislingham and the clashing colours in her drawing room. She half-recognised a face approaching her, and then smiled the condescending and unapproachable smile which came automatically to members of the aristocracy intended to convey benevolence to the recipient of the smile whilst firmly reminding them of the impossibility of presuming an acquaintance on the strength of it, as she realised that the face was that of Grace, the dark-haired mannequin with the broader shoulders.

About to pass by, a thought occurred to her. Half-laughing to herself at the thought of what her sister-in-law would have said if she'd been following Mary's adventures of the morning ("first drinking tea with a policemen and now talking in the street to shop girls!"), she said to the girl, "It's Grace, isn't it? Are you off for your lunch?"

"Yes, my lady", Grace beamed. She looked around, hoping that someone would see her talking to such a fine lady. "I was going down to the Lyons corner 'ouse, wot you've just popped out of, I saw, with your 'andsome gentleman friend, if you'll pardon me saying so."

"I suppose no lady ever minds hearing her gentlemen friends called handsome," laughed Mary (she did, in fact, think it overly familiar, but saw no way to make this point whilst retaining Grace's confidence). She played for time whilst she thought of a way to bring the conversation around to Lucy. "Have you a young man of your own, Grace?"

Grace shook her head virtuously but slightly regretfully. "You don't want to get tied down too soon, my mother says".

"I expect she's right", Mary replied. "Mothers usually are, aren't they? Do you know, I've just remembered how odd it was at the start of this week when Mrs Schmidt tried to pretend that you were Lucy. Do you remember?"

"Yes, I do, my lady and I remember because I've never known her be dishonest, not in the smallest thing. She said after as 'ow she didn't ought to 'ave gave Lucy them days off and she didn't want to offend seeing as 'ow some people prefer to use the same mannequins each time, but I thought she should 'ave known you weren't one to make a fuss on account of a thing like that."

"You're quite right," Mary smiled. "Do you know where Lucy was, by the way?" she added, in what she hoped was an appropriately casual tone. She need not have worried. Grace was one of those people who was so interested in her fellow creature that no amount of curiosity on the part of others would have struck her as unusual.

"I don't know, I'm sure, my lady," she replied. "But I wasn't 'arf expecting 'er to come back. She's always been a bit of a one for airs and graces, ever since she arrived, saying as 'ow she wouldn't be working along with the likes of us for long and she was 'eaded for 'igher things. But you couldn't take it too serious because she'd be laughing and she was a right laugh to work along with, anyway. But then Friday she was all different. She'd ad a letter and she kept pulling it out of 'er pocket and glowering at it like a thunderstorm, and she rushed off straight after closing without a word to a soul. And then on Monday she wasn't there! But she was back on Wednesday cool as you please and no 'arm done, I suppose."

"I suppose so," agreed Lady Mary. "Well, life is full of these little mysteries, isn't it? I mustn't keep you from your lunch. Good day, Grace."

"Good day, my lady," replied Grace and she hurried off to the corner house to meet her friend who worked at the drapers and gloat happily over having friends in such high places.

Grace was still beaming with vicarious glamour from her conversation with Lady Mary when she returned to Mrs Schmidt's shop, and she held a little court whilst she told the other girls all about it.

"Ever so interested in you, she was, and all about where you'd been", Grace told Lucy, kindly.

"Was she now?" Lucy responded with narrowed eyes and much less enthusiasm than Grace had expected. For Lucy was an avid reader of the more sensational stories in the newspapers, and though she'd been convinced at the time by Mr Parker's persona as the sheepish lover of Lady Mary, she was now recalling headlines with photographs of criminals being arrested, and remembering where she'd seen his face before.


	3. 3

"Well, Charles", said Peter fractiously, settled in the shabby comfort of Charles's living room at Great Ormond Street late in the evening. "I must say I don't like the way this is going. Are you saying that I must drive all the way back up there tomorrow, after so many weary hours on the road today, to get identification of this wretched girl?"

"Only if you want to," Charles said, mildly. "I'm happy to send a man to do it. And I've got plenty to go on down here for the time being. I've asked Mrs Schmidt to come in tomorrow to see whether she can identify that bit of red fabric as one that may have fallen off one of Mary's piece-dresses. Mary says they're cut quite precisely, so it may be possible to be definitive.

I'm hopeful, anyway, because Mrs Schmidt recognised Mr Spicer's photograph. She said he didn't supply her fabrics - seemed quite offended when I suggested it - but that he'd been in to the shop trying to get her interested in buying his stuff about a month ago. She can't remember the date, but it was just before closing and she had to practically sweep him out of the shop, she said. Lucy was working that day, she remembers, because she thought Lucy was far too familiar with him, but couldn't object because of course Lucy had her over a barrel over this other business. I've nothing that's not circumstantial at the moment, but it's coming together. Lucy knew Spicer, anyway. I'll speak to Lucy's mother tomorrow. Though I'd love a witness or some information about that night at the station, I must say."

"You're a very difficult man to please, Charles" Peter said, bitterly. "I practically bring you a charge sheet on a plate, and all you talk of is Victoria station. It's quite discouraging."

"A charge sheet on a plate, eh?" Charles said with his usual equanimity. "Tell me more."

"One day, Charles, I shall lay information before you which elicits a passionate and emotional response, and I shall then go to my grave happy. But I see that today is not to be that day. Very well.

When I arrived at the inn in question, I had a very nice long chat with the proprietor over many glasses of ale. I wonder whether it may perhaps have affected my driving later, now I think of it. Bunter look quite green."

"Wimsey" growled his friend, reprovingly.

"Sorry. I forget you don't care so much for the background colour. Well, Mr Higham - the proprietor - confirmed that it was Mr Spicer who had stayed and described the girl much as Mary did - that is to say, in so general a way as to be almost meaningless. He said they were very late to breakfast and seemed colossally tired on Tuesday morning, but he'd put that down to amorous activities the night before. Nobody had been convinced by the story that the girl was his wife, of course, but "judge not lest you be judged" seems to be the motto of that inn.

Higham and his wife hadn't heard anything untoward during the night - they sleep at the other end of the house - but another guest was in the room next to the Spicers, and I've that guest's address for my pains so we can ask him. Higham said that any guest could leave in the course of the night if they liked, for the door is unlocked, but bolted from within."

"Anyone could unbolt it and leave it unbolted, of corse", Charles remarked with cautious approval.

"Quite. Well, then I tootled over to the sorrowing house at Heathencote. It's an easy four mile walk by road. The talkative constable was very eager to tell me all he knew, and it was a lot. He's friendly with the kitchen maid.

Mr Kloves - the deceased, you know - appears to have been a man both irascible and curiously susceptible. He had fallen out with his only son several years ago and had recently started making noises about changing his will. A young and comely parlourmaid mentioned to the cook last week that Mr Kloves had said he had promised to leave everything to her if she'd "be sweet" to him, and in fact he had arranged to see his solicitor the following Thursday. Only, of course, he died on Monday night.

As to that, there hadn't been any signs of a break in or intrusion which is always dashed awkward for the servants, what? But it's easy enough to climb over the fences into the grounds and according to our good kitchen maid there's a door which has come off its hinges so doesn't shut properly, which is naturally always left unlocked. It only lets you into the courtyard, but from there you can get into the scullery because the window doesn't fasten, and from there into the rest of the house."

"Fat lot of good any of this would be to a stranger, though" Charles said, nodding.

"No; nor to the younger Mr Kloves, either, who is everyone's favourite suspect at the moment, what with all this will business. He hasn't been to the house for over a decade and he lives miles away in Bicester. His wife gives him an alibi for the whole of that night, for what it's worth."

But I had a good scout around the place, and providing the staff weren't lying about what was locked when, there really aren't any other ways in. My constable friend and his kitchen maid procured me an interview with the parlourmaid in question. She seemed relieved rather than anything by Mr Kloves' death. She says she'd never know what to do with all of that money, and I suspect the prospect of being sweet to Mr Kloves was pretty appalling.

Now the kitchen maid tells us that this isn't the first time Mr Kloves' eye has fallen on a servant, but that last time the housekeeper, who isn't at all keen on any funny business, contrived to dismiss the girl before it got that far."

"Let me take a wild guess," Charles said, sardonically. "Was the girl Lucy Watson?"

"That's the one. Jackpot for you, Mr Parker. Anyway, that's really all I found out. I went to Mr Kloves' solicitor after that, but he wouldn't talk to me. One of these old-fashioned birds who doesn't trust the roaming amateur detective and prefers to divulge his clients' confidential affairs to the police. Unaccountable. You'll have to speak to him, or find out what he's told the Bucks police."

"This is uncommonly helpful", Charles said, grinning. "Thanks. Have another drink. Have I told you about how splendid Mary was in getting all that about Lucy Watson's letter from the other girl? It was so well done, as I told her when she phoned, of course. I wonder if there was anyone up at Heathencote who wrote to Lucy - that's another question for our friends up there."

"You have mentioned it once or twice," Peter remarked, drily. He lifted his glass to Charles. "To your ever fruitful association with Wimseys of all persuasions."

————-

By noon the following day, Detective-Inspector Parker was sitting in his shirt sleeves at his desk at Scotland Yard, running his hands through his hair thoughtfully, and contemplating the rosy prospect of a pint of refreshing light ale at lunchtime. A constable knocked at his door and said "Lord Peter and Lady Mary Wimsey 'ere to see you, sir."

Mr Parker sprang up, and greeted them both enthusiastically. With a sinking heart Lady Mary noted the shirt sleeves, but she resolutely kept her gaze from resting on his forearms, and so maintained her cool.

"What news, Parker mine?" Lord Peter asked, sitting down.

"Lots", Parker replied, happily. "Mrs Schmidt confirmed the piece of fabric we found on Spicer as definitely coming from the missing dress", and he twiddled it between his fingers "though of course that doesn't prove when Spicer was with Lucy. He could have picked it up from the shop that evening, at a pinch, though Mrs Schmidt swears that he never touched any of the clothes. Still, it's something.

"I've had a chat with the fellow from the Buckinghamshire force, too. He tells me that a bottle of sleeping medicine was missing from the old man's bedside, by the way. Nobody thought much of it, because it's not what killed him -it's strong stuff, which the old fellow took every night because of rheumatic pains, but there was only a normal amount in his bloodstream.. I've said I'll go up there tomorrow, to speak to the solicitor and have a look at some prints they found on the door and can't identify. I've got Spicer's, of course, and I'll send the sergeant across to the mags to get a warrant for Lucy's today. Here's hoping."

"But what if Lucy didn't leave any prints, and taking a copy of them tips her off that you - we, I mean - suspect her?" Mary said. "Mightn't she destroy other evidence, or something?"

"Spoken like a true detective!" Parker said warmly, with an admiring gleam in his eye.

"It'll tip her off all right, but that can't be helped. I'm going to speak to her mother this afternoon, too, so she'd know anyway soon enough. We've been assuming that she was at Heathencote because she went to such lengths to establish a fake alibi during the day, but it all falls apart if she was tucked up in bed at home on Monday night, of course.

I'd like to see if I can find any trace of that bag of Spicers, or the letter, but I can't get a search warrant yet, not on the strength of what I've got against her. Will you come, Peter?"

"We both will", Mary answered promptly. Whether either of the men would have had anything to say about this, she never knew, for at that moment there was another rap at the door. The constable announced "Two gentlemen from the railways 'ere for you, Sir", and a stout middle aged man with a bald head shining luminously came in, half dragging a sullen-looking young man with fair hair and red rings around his eyes.

"Thank you, Merritt. Would you mind bringing an extra chair, and staying here for a bit?" The room was small and close, and already uncomfortably warm, but Parker had to involve some official resources in his investigation, after all. Lady Mary removed her jacket, and underneath she had on one of the blouses run up at Mrs Schmidt's, with the neckline that modestly but enthrallingly skimmed the collarbone, in a light violet fabric. Parker swallowed and wished he hadn't taken that moment to courteously stand up, allowing the visitors to sit down.

He fixed his eyes determinedly on the railway gentlemen and introduced Lord Peter and Lady Mary in a slightly off-hand way which successfully suggested that portions of aristocratic families were often to be found in Detective-Inspectors' offices and that only a very unworldly man would question it.

"I'm Joe Leary", the older gentleman said, mopping the top of his head, "'ead porter down at Victoria, and this 'ere is Fred Gibson."

"Fred!" Mary said, without thinking. "Surely you're Lucy Watson's young man?"

Peter looked at his sister repressively, and at Parker apologetically. But Fred nodded miserably and then shrugged

"I was, but I'm not now. She chucked me when she came back to London in the spring, after all that time and all them letters", Fred said bitterly, for he was not a man who enjoyed corresponding and felt that his efforts in that regard had been very poorly rewarded.

"Plenty of fish in the sea, you know", Parker said, encouragingly. Peter allowed himself an ironically raised eyebrow upon hearing this blithe assertion tripping off the tongue of a man who, to his certain knowledge, had been steadfastly and apparently hopelessly in love with the same woman for very nearly three years. "Have you any information for us?"

"Go on, Fred", said Leary, not unkindly. Fred scuffed his feet and then said,

"I'm a porter too under Mr Leary, up at the station. I normally do the evening shift, and finish up after the last train. I put all the carts and all away and then lock up the little depot where they're stored and go home."

On Friday last week I was doing the same shift and Lucy called by to see me. She didn't exactly say so but it seemed a sure thing she wanted to start things up again, if you see what I mean, Sir. I showed her all around the place. I didn't have this job before she went away to Towcester, you see, so she'd never really known all the responsibilities I had and all that, and she was so interested and impressed."

"I'll bet she was", Parker thought, sternly, but made no comment other than an encouraging nod. "Well, we went into the depot to... to talk, as you might you say, on account of it's being more private. There's the key safe in there with all the keys for the trains that stop overnight at the station, and she gave it a good look and asked all about the engines and carriages and the timetables and all. Felt like she was interested more than what you'd expect, but then I just thought it was because it was to do with me, and she -"

"Never mind that, Fred", Parker put in. "Surely the key safe isn't kept unlocked?"

"No-oo, but it's Mr Venables the station master what's supposed to lock it, Sir."

Fred presented this as a entirely self-explanatory piece of information. Parker looked at Mr Leary for assistance, and that gentleman responded by performing an exaggerated mine of drinking from a bottle. "More often than not he don't remember to lock it up at all, Sir, but he's a nice old gent and nobody has the 'eart to complain."

"I see," said Parker, disappointed. "Was it unlocked on Friday night, then?"

"Must have been, Sir, because I was showing Lucy where all the keys hung and how you could tell which was for which train. I never saw her take a key, of course, but there were plenty of moments when she could have done while I was doing other things. She stayed in the depot with the key safe while I collected up the carts."

"There was a to-do the next day when we found that the key to carriages for the 35 engine what does the south west line was missing, I can tell you", said Mr Leary. "But there's a spare, so we 'ad another made. It's not as if you can steal a train just with the key, after all, so we weren't too worried. Only then when the dead man was found on the same train, that was when Mr Venables started asking questions. Fred never said nothing about Lucy until he told me today, and I marched him right down 'ere."

"Why didn't you say anything before, Fred?" Lady Mary asked. Fred looked a bit put out at being questioned by a woman, but responded civilly enough, in deference to her class and beauty.

"Didn't went to get no-one into trouble, Miss. My Lady, I mean. But she's not seen hide nor hair of me since that night and her mum wouldn't even let me in the house when I called round and came up with some story about how she'd gone on holiday, as if I'd believe that. I really thought she wanted to pick things up again, after the way she was carrying on."

"I think you may find yourself quite glad in years to come that she didn't, Fred" Parker said. "Thank you, that's very helpful. And what time did you finish work at the station on Tuesday night? Eleven? A shame you saw nothing then, but as a large number of vagrants have pointed out to us, it's not hard to get into the station at night. If you'll leave your address with constable Merritt, we'll be in touch if we need anything further. Thank you very much, Mr Leary". Parker shook hands with the two men, and Mary allowed herself a fleeting glance at his forearms as he did so. She looked away to see her brother watching her, and blushed nonsensically.

When the railway men had gone, Lord Peter remarked "I say, I don't like this holiday business. Could she have done a flit?"

"Could be that her mother had been instructed to keep unwanted suitors away", said Parker, "but let's go down and check. Are you sure you want to come, Lady Mary?" Peter's presence had tipped him inadvertently back into formal address, but Mary's smile reassured him that no froideur had been re-established.

"Yes, please, Mr Parker", she replied, demurely, and he called for an unmarked police car to convey the three of them to the address that Mrs Schmidt had given them for Lucy in the backstreets of Marble Arch.


	4. 4

Upon arrival at Lucy Watson's address, Lord Peter looked around him and said "I admire how they keep their rubbish bins here - helpfully numbered metal bins lined up down the alleys. I wonder when the bin-men come in Marble Arch? Probably worth a look, in any case. I'll do that while you two speak to Mrs Watson."

Parker looked at Peter rather strangely, but politely agreed. He knocked on the door with the once jaunty red paint and he and Mary waited.

Mr Parker introduced himself and Mary in such a way that Mrs Watson was delighted to see them. Charles acknowledged himself to be a Detective-Inspector, but this sounded so far removed from the bobbies on the beat with whom Mrs Watson had previously dealt that she could hardly realise it meant a policeman at all, and she was overjoyed to meet so elegant a lady as Lady Mary.

"I deal a lot with Mrs Schmidt, you see," Mary said, "and I've always taken a special interest in Lucy, so I was hoping we could find a way to make sure that she isn't in trouble."

"In trouble?" Mrs Watson's face fell. "Oh, no, my Lady, I 'ope to God she's not - No, I don't believe it of her. She's far too good -and if not too good, too sensible, which comes to the same thing."

"Oh no, I don't mean that sort of trouble", Mary hurriedly assured her. "I mean that she seems to have had a friendship of some sort with the man found on the train a few days ago - you'll have read about it? - and we need to find out what she knows about him and be sure she's not with any of his unsuitable associates".

"Oh, she couldn't 'ave been friends with anyone who wasn't respectable," Mrs Watson said, relief written all over her face at finding out that this was the trouble suspected. "Not Lucy. And she's quite safe now, anyway, for she's gone on an 'oliday. Wasn't it nice of Mrs Schmidt - decent lady, for all she's a foreigner - to give her a week by the sea? Lucy's gone down to Kent to stay with the family of a girl she met when she was in service at Towcester."

Mary darted a look at Mr Parker. "Would you mind terribly if I went into the parlour for a few minutes? It's so close in here" she said, faintly.

Mrs Watson was kind, but too busy answering Mr Parker's rapid questions to be assiduous in her concern for the pale young lady. In the space of five minutes Parker had learned that Mrs Watson had been down to the station to buy a ticket for the underground to Waterloo, and she had set off half an hour earlier. "She said she'd write with the address, for she couldn't remember it, but the girl's sister will come to meet her at the station, so that's all right." He also learned that Lucy had been staying the night with her friend from the dressmakers, that nice Grace, on Monday night. "I've the boys to look after me, so she doesn't worry about me getting lonely and she's got her own life to lead. At 'er age I'd gone straight from my ma's kitchen to my 'usband's, but just fancy, all the things Lucy's done already in her life."

"Remarkable things indeed", remarked Parker, and he meant it. "Did you hear her say where she was going when she bought the ticket, Mrs Watson?"

"Oh no, I was sitting on the bench outside. I never go inside the stations if I can 'elp it, nasty, crowded, dirty places, specially in this 'eat. But she'd already told me she was going to Whitstable."

"I see. Mrs Watson, as far as you know, has Lucy seen her friend Fred Gibson recently?"

"She was out for an evening with 'im last week - Friday, it was, and I don't mind telling you that I 'oped it was all back on with them. A nice, steady boy with such a lovely 'ead of 'air and I may say that that's one thing you learn to value in an 'usband. But 'e was round asking for her last night, and she told me to tell 'im she was on 'oliday already, though she wasn't yet. I thought she'd just made it up about the 'oliday to get rid of 'im, until this morning."

"Did he leave her any particular message?"

"Well, 'e was disappointed, poor fellow, so 'e did speak a bit wild. None of it made any sense, of course - said as 'ow there was things 'e knew that he wouldn't be keeping 'is counsel on any longer if that was all she thought of 'im, and off 'e goes."

"And you told Lucy that he'd said that?"

"Well, I didn't need to, Sir. She was sitting at the top of the stairs round the corner, listening. It's the way of young girls with tender 'earts when they want to let a young man down gentle, always 'as been."

Parker nodded neutrally, betraying nothing of his own views about the tenderness of Lucy's heart.

'Adn't we better check that your lady's all right?"

At that moment, Lady Mary re-entered the room. She had seldom been in rooms so small and poky, and was working hard not to show her reaction of dismay to them. Parker reflected- very briefly, for there was much to think about - that her surroundings never diminished her beauty. She would look graceful in a sewer, he reflected ruefully.

"I'm feeling much better, thank you", she said, "I only needed some air."

As Mr Parker pressed upon Mrs Watson the importance of communicating with him at once should she hear from Lucy, the woman suddenly turned beseeching eyes on Mary. "My girl's not in bad trouble, is she?"

"I hope not, Mrs Watson", was the best that Mary could think to say. "I always thought her so nice."

As they walked towards the police car, Parker told Mary what he had learned. "We know what's panicked her, anyway - it was this Fred business. Curse him. With the drunken Mr Venables and his ever-open key safe, Fred's evidence isn't worth much anyway. Did you find anything upstairs? I heard the staircase creak - don't worry, Mrs Watson didn't hear anything. It was a grand idea of yours."

"I wanted that letter, of course", said Mary, "but I couldn't find it, I'm afraid, though of course there wasn't time for a proper search."

They smelled Peter before they saw him. Frowning, they turned around to see him filthy. His light grey suit of the finest flannel and duck-egg blue shirt were all stained and smutty.

"I must change before poor Bunter sees me," he remarked. "This would finish him off. However, my squalid misadventures have not been in vain."

He profited a bag made of stiff black carpet material to Parker . Eyes lighting up, Parker discretely got into the car. Mary and Peter following him, Parker pulled on some thin gloves and gingerly opened the bag.

"Men's clothes packed for a few days away - toothbrush and the like. Empty wallet and pocket book containing - aha! Papers relating to the sales made in the month of June by Mr Harold Spicer for the British and Indian Fabrics Company. Solid evidence st last! I'd shake your hand, Peter, if I could bear to touch you before you've washed. Well done! In the bins?"

Peter nodded. "Not the bins that belong to the Watsons' block, the ones from a few blocks along."

"So perhaps it wasn't Lucy after all, but somebody who happens to live close by?" Mary asked, knowing the answer already.

"That would be a turn up for the books", Parker agreed, gently "and you never know until you have cast iron proof. We'll look for prints on this, of course. But..."

"No. I know", Mary said, sadly. And she made no further comment when one of the piece-dresses she had designed, in red and yellow, was found at the bottom of the bag.

————

The afternoon was an industrious one for all concerned. Detective-Inspector Parker spent a good part of it arranging for the photograph and, preceding that, the description of Lucy Watson to be sent to the police forces in all reasonably accessible places so that she might be detained if she were seen there, and then went up to Towcester in an unmarked police car. Charles Parker was not an admirer of Lord Peter Wimsey's driving, but felt on this occasion that the price he paid in white knuckles would have been worth the additional speed, as the south Buckinghamshire countryside sprawled past him out of the window with treacley slowness.

The Wimseys, once Peter was restored to a respectable and fragrant condition, went back to Oxford Circus. Mrs Schmidt confirmed that Lucy didn't work on Fridays anyway, but promised to let Scotland Yard know if she didn't turn up tomorrow (for her tale to her mother about having been given a week's holiday was news to her employer) and equally, to let the Yard know if she did. Mary spoke to Grace and the other girls, more to feel that she was doing something than because she expected to learn anything new.

Grace proved once again to be a source of useful information, however. When Mary asked - openly, now, for there didn't seem much point in pretending their interest was purely friendly - whether anyone knew anything about Lucy's gentlemen friends, Grace piped up.

"Oh yes", she said. "We all knew about Fred, of course, but there was another one as well. The one with the mustache who came round with the fabrics. I remember because it was late when I left - Mrs Schmidt 'ad made me stay back to sew up a seam I'd ripped when I was too careless getting a dress off - and I saw him and Lucy walking off together. I asked 'er the next day what she was up to. It's one thing to ditch nice Fred, but quite another if it was just to take up with a boring fellow like that old enough to be 'er father."

"And what did she say?"

"She said you never knew when people might come in 'andy. I said it didn't seem right to me, not when 'e was married and all ('e 'ad a ring on), and she just laughed. Some people get all the fellows after them, whatever they do." Grace added the last words slightly wistfully.

"Oh Grace, those are the sorts of men whose attentions you can well do without", Mary said. "Much better to forget about them altogether and wait until someone comes along who is handsome and kind, and brave and hard-working."

Grace nodded in the dutiful manner of someone being given unsolicited advice by a social superior. When the Wimseys had gone, she said knowingly to the others "She meant that there Mr Parker. The way they look at each other when they think the other one's not looking isn't 'alf decent! I wonder why they don't just get married?"

"Don't be silly," replied Clare. "She'll be engaged to marry an old foreign prince or something like that, for the good of the country. It's not all fun and games being a ladyship". Clare read a large number of halfpenny romance novels, and although her understanding of the distinction between royalty and aristocracy was hazy, she was looked upon as an expert in these matters by the other girls, who nodded wisely and sadly.

As they left, Peter took his sister's arm. "Good work, my child", he said in the richly patronising tones of an older brother. "You'll make a detective yet. Perhaps we should go into business. Wimsey and Sister private detective agency - sounds quite imposing, what?"

"No, thank you", said Mary. "I'm tired of almost everyone and everything in this business turning out to be nastier than I thought they were. I suppose I'd better get back to Sloane Square and the matter of Lady Bridlington's curtains before she insists on the violet with the green and that all turns out nastily, too.

I think I'll come to your flat this evening and stay, though. Ch- Mr Parker said he'd call when he got back from Towcester regardless of the hour, didn't he?"

"He did", her brother replied. "The delights of 110A Piccadilly are ever at your service. But I'll come with you to Sloane Square."

When Mary looked up at him in surprise he added "Don't worry, I won't interfere. I'll drink tea ornamentally with Lady Bridlington. Has it occurred to you, my dear child, that it must have dawned on Lucy by now that it was you who brought her to the attention of the police in the first place? It's her own fault of course, for using dark means to produce a crack-pot alibi, and I must say she strikes me as the opportunistic rather than the vengeful type. But all the same, I'd rather you weren't tripping merrily around London on your own, just for the moment."

Mary considered this. "Very well," she said at last. "You're a decent old stick, aren't you, Peter?"

Her brother gave a smile with a hint of mischief in it. "Well, it's partly my innate brotherly decency, of course" he replied. "But it's mostly because if anything were to happen to you I don't know _what _I'd say to Ch- I mean, Mr Parker."

—————-

It was one o clock in the morning when Mr Parker returned from Towcester. Exhausted, he very nearly had the constable who had driven and accompanied him in his inquiries take him straight home to Great Ormond Street. But he remembered his promise to Peter that he would call whatever the time, and reflected that he had woken Peter at worse times before if a case depended on it. "110A Piccadilly, Hopkins", he ordered wearily, as the car swooped through the deserted night into central London.

Bunter answered the door looking as smooth and collected as though it had been an ordinary mid-afternoon call. "I'll wake his lordship", he said softly, "and bring you some refreshments". Parker was grateful, remembering that he had not eaten since a hasty breakfast.

He was sitting in the library eating scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and dill and drinking several cups from a large pot of tea when Peter arrived, resplendent in a crimson dressing gown.

"You did ask me to call as soon as I returned," Parker reminded him, but not without a note of apology in his voice.

"I meant it," Peter said. "I would telll you that I haven't been able to sleep for thinking of this case, but your observational powers would at once expose me as a fraud. But I'm delighted to see you, old man. What news?"

A light flickered in the hall as the door opened, and Mary stood in the doorway in a pale yellow dressing gown over a long white nightdress. Mr Parker found he was smiling broadly, though pointedly not looking closely at her in what he thought of as a state of undress, as he made his apologies for disturbing her. He had time to think that she was uncommonly lovely in the soft lamplight before replying to Peter's question.

"The charge sheet writes itself, now, even without the prints - though of course I've bought them back on a slide to compare with Lucy's when we get them. I'll be damned - forgive me, Lady Mary - if they're not a match. She's the principal beneficiary of old Kloves's will, of course. The solicitor was bursting with righteous indignation at the old man being so improper as to leave his fortune to a young female servant, and couldn't wait to tell me.

The most useful interview was with her chum up at Heathencote, though, a footman named Phillips. Another one of Lucy's dubious conquests —and one of the witnesses to the will made over a year ago in her favour - he seems to have been a bit of a reluctant conspirator. He and Lucy had made plans to marry when she inherited, he said, and be Lord and Lady of the manor themselves. Lucy had been much cleverer than the new parlourmaid, though, becauss she didn't tell anyone about the will apart from Phillips and the other witness. Philips wrote to her at once in alarm when he heard about the old man's plan to disinherit Lucy in favour of the new girl."

"That letter that she received on Friday!" Mary said.

"Yes, he wrote on Wednesday, so it must be it. She'd left Heathencote a few months ago, as we know, telling the old man she hated to leave him but that her mother was ill and she simply had to nurse her. She seems to have told Philips the same thing. In fact the housekeeper had dismissed her, suspecting the old man's interest in her, though not how far it had gone in the matter of wills, of course.

Philips didn't know a thing about the murder and the break-in, he claimed, and I'm inclined to believe him. Quite apart from the look of horror on his face when he realised what his paramour was capable of which I think would be hard to fake, it hardly took three of them, so she would hardly have needed Spicer at all if he had been."

"I still don't understand why she needed Spicer anyway. She could have done it all more easily on her own, surely? She killed Spicer the next day, and he was a younger and healthier man."

"That's about the only part of this I still don't understand," Parker agreed, rubbing his hand over the stubble that was beginning to appear on his chin. "Of course, she took the sleeping stuff to help weaken Spicer when she wanted to finish him off, but Kloves was always full of that stuff every night, so it can't have been that she thought she couldn't manage a suffocation without it."

"Having an accomplice and then finishing him off made it all so much more complicated - and discoverable. Has there been any sign of her?"

"Philips swore he hasn't seen her since she disappeared. I did wonder if she'd try to go up to Towcester to claim her inheritance. Of course probate won't have been granted yet, but she may not know that. The police all over Towcester are on high alert for her."

There was a pause. Peter said, thoughtfully. "How solid is your case, Charles?"

"Well, your friend at the inn identified Lucy as the girl who stayed on Monday night with Spicer, Peter. Until I have prints, I haven't got any conclusive physical evidence to absolutely pin her to the actual crimes - but the bag in the bins is hard to argue with. I honestly don't think there can be any doubt. Oh God, is this going to be the moment where you reveal a fascinating theory that it was really Mrs Mrs Schmidt in league with the Heathencote cook all along?" Parker groaned.

"No, no." Peter smiled. "We're of one mind on this one. We've got her. Except, of course, we haven't."

"Well, that's the thing. It's what I wanted to ask your opinion on. It seems to me that there are two options for me now. I can launch a public appeal, photos on the front page of every newspaper across the nation, reward for information. It reduces the chance that she'll be able to lie low for years or skip to Ireland or something, but it shows our hand. There's no way she'd go back to Towcester, or her mum's house, if we've done that. Or I keep quiet and have as many policemen as I can watching the likeliest places for a few days. That way we're much more likely to know where she'll go, but we risk losing her altogether if she makes a dash for it."

"In the absence of any evidence to go on, I suppose it's a question of psychology", Peter mused. "I don't see her heading off to Ireland to start again with nothing to show for all her trouble. Isn't she more the type to hang on somewhere and buzz around to try to claim the Kloves money? She may not realise that we've made the connection with that business, you know. As far as she's aware, we're really just on to her for the Spicer job. And she can't have much money on her."

"Well, Mrs Spicer doesn't know how much money her husband would have had on him when he died, but it may have been quite a sum. These travelling salesmen fellows often do carry quite a lot of cash."

"Yes, and don't forget she's been extorting cash from poor old Mrs Schmidt for the past two months", Mary added. "She didn't have anything very expensive looking in her room, that I could see, so she may have been saving it. Perhaps she always had in mind an escape to France, as a sort of back-up."

"Why France?" Peter asked. "A girl like that surely wouldn't have much French, if any. I'd have thought Ireland would be a better bet, as Charles said."

"I just said France without thinking," Mary said, slowly, "but I think it's where she'd go, all the same. So much of the stuff in the magazines of the type that Lucy had in her bedroom is about fashions from Paris, and it's certainly a place where there's lots of work for mannequins."

Parker's gaze rested on Mary for a long while he considered this. At length he said "That swings it. I'm not having her escape to France. I'll put out an appeal. It'll have to be a last-minute attachment to the papers, but if I catch them now then I'll have something added to the front pages all right. I'd better get them the photograph"

Mary wouldn't have believed that newspaper editors could be roused en masse in the middle of the night, but after much swearing over the telephone, it appeared to be possible, for detective-inspectors at Scotland Yard, anyway. Once Parker had them on the line he had to bully and cajole them into bestirring themselves to interfere with the workings of their already whirring presses, and in the end only succeeded by telling each of them that their rivals had already accepted the story and that to fail to do so would be to conspicuously miss the scoop of the year. The most eager editor, whose paper was in its infancy and more disposed to oblige than the others, agreed to pop round to pick up the stack of photos from Piccadilly, and then circulate them amongst his Fleet Street colleagues. Once this was finally done, Parker stood up. He winced as he looked at his watch, which showed the time as twenty past three. "I'll go home and get a couple of hours' sleep before I go to the Yard", he said.

Peter would hear none of it, of course.

"Where do you imagine you'd get a cab from at this ungodly hour, you blithering idiot?" he demanded amicably. "You have my bed and I'll sleep on this friendly sofa - no, don't talk rot. Your showily long legs would dangle over the sides ridiculously if you tried it, and I've slept here heaps of times. If you can't be sensible then we'll have to come and sit by the bedside and sing till you drift off, won't we, Mary?"

Parker was really too tired to argue further, and allowed himself to be issued with a toothbrush and shaving things and marched off to bed by Bunter. Once ensconced in Peter's vast bed, however, he became acutely conscious that Mary too must be in bed, in the white nightdress whose thinness it turned out that he _had_ noticed despite his efforts, and that she was separated from him only by a wall. It was a solid wall enough, but it seemed somehow flimsy and insubstantial in the face of his desire. He felt wide awake. He allowed himself to think of her in a way which he had hitherto strictly forbidden himself. It was fortunate in the morning that there was far too much going on for anyone to notice that he struggled to look her in the eye.


	5. 5

As requested, Bunter (looking as though he had woken from ten hours undisturbed slumber) woke Mr Parker at eight in the morning. Parker groaned, rose, washed and shaved, and then started to get dressed back into his clothes from the day before which, not unnaturally given the heat and his exertions, no longer looked or smelled as he would wish. Sighing, he started to reach his arm into the sleeve of the shirt when Bunter came in with a fresh suit of clothes. Parker raised his eyebrow - he was so much taller and broader than Peter that they couldn't have belonged to his Lordship, even if they had been of the right style and quality. "Yours, Bunter?"

"They'll be a bit too short in the leg, Mr Parker, and narrow in the shoulder, but I thought them better than any of the viable alternatives."

"I'm exceedingly grateful, Mr Bunter," Parker replied, but the telephone rang and Bunter was gone before Parker could finish speaking. Unsurprisingly, the telephone call was for Parker himself. Still tying his tie he hurried out to answer it, passing Peter and Mary, the latter looking pale and tousled from her disturbed night and all the more charming for it, at the breakfast table.

Mary looked up from her coffee to see Charles running his hand through his unbrushed dark hair as he spoke into the telephone. Her feelings for him had over the years taken in admiration, attraction to the point of yearning, and a deep and fond affection, but never until this point any sort of maternal leaning. As she watched him leaning on the desk with his tie half untied and his shoulders weary, however, the urge came upon her to stand beside him and stroke his arm encouragingly - better not to think too much about his arms, she warned herself - and to stand on tiptoe to properly tie his tie for him. Of course the nature of their relationship was not such as to allow either of those things, so she watched him with her head on one side as he spoke into the telephone. "Jolly good... yes, well, get them to put all their men on it and to have a watch at the port... detain her... why the blazes not?" ("Forgive me, Lady Mary", he mouthed in her direction after this last exclamation). "Oh hell - yes, I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Something afoot, Parker mine?" Peter asked?

"The keeper of a small hotel at Dover had her staying last night, but let her go before she saw the morning paper" Parker said, gulping coffee. "They've got the watch out now across the port, but the local constabulary seem to be in a bloody mess about the whole thing - sorry, Lady Mary. Some of them say they can't go on to the one ship that passengers have already boarde mi d and hunt for her because it's in the sea and it doesn't count as being in Kent. Others say the photograph isn't clear and they can't detain anyone on the strength of it. It's maddening, because it's only the first sighting - you know what these things are like, I imagine there'll be twenty more before the day is through, probably in Inverness - but I'd better go down just in case she's there ready to sail away. Peter, I can't lose time. Can you-"

"Never have I been so impressed at your willingness to suffer in the line of duty as now", Peter grinned. "Consider me your elegant if damnably familiar chauffeur."

All three of them rose together. Parker hesitated as he scrambled into his jacket, and asked "Lady Mary, have you driven with Peter before?"

"Heaps of times", she said. "I'm never ill. As one of my aunts so kindly said to me on my last birthday, beauty may fade but a strong constitution never will. Shall we go?"

————-

The drive down to Dover was for Charles Parker both the stuff of dreams and of nightmares. To be sitting in enforced proximity such as the backseat of a car afforded for a protracted period of time with Lady Mary ought to have been an unalloyed pleasure. On the other hand, they travelled at such a speed that the noise of the engine largely made conversation stilted and even gazing at the face which haunted his every dream was a pleasure marred by the constant risk that he might be sick. In addition, he was uneasy about his case and about being away from the Yard on what could well turn out to be a fool's errand. Mr Parker was not worried, exactly - as with many consciously rational people, his policy was to make a decision on the basis of what seemed the most sensible on the evidence available at the time, and then leave it - but he didn't like it.

They arrived at Dover, and headed straight for the port. There they found a gaggle of policemen, all extremely relieved to find that the detective-inspector from London had arrived, although somewhat bemused by the fact that he appeared to be accompanied by two fair-haired aristocrats rather than subordinate members of the constabulary.

"Any further sightings? Have any ships sailed this morning?" Parker asked them, brusquely. Relieved at hearing a negative answer to both questions, he asked with a calmer manner about the quantity of policemen posted about the port and the arrangements made for vetting those who presented themselves to board ships. Satisfied, he gestured towards the _Emerald Queen, _the one ship which had already started boarding before Parker's instructions had been issued and which had been due to sail over two hours ago. "Has this one been searched?"

Inspector Beech, a tall and anxious looking man who was feeling the weight of his responsibility heavily that morning, nodded. "But the thing is, Mr Parker, the shipsman who lets passengers on the boat swears that this Lucy Watson got on the boat as soon as ever they pulled down the gangway this morning - or someone who looks a great deal like her. It was a different name on her passage papers, but he says it's the same girl or he's a Dutchman (which he's not, of course). We've searched high and low on that bally ship and not seen hide not hair of her. Only the ship staff are left on it, and we don't think we could have missed her. But we didn't like to let it sail before you'd seen it, too."

"Right you are", said Parker, grimly. A senior policeman's job is a difficult one at such times. The delayed passengers were getting more and more volubly unhappy and he was quite possibly wasting valuable time. He exchanged a glance with Peter. To any onlooker it would have appeared devoid of expression, but immediately afterwards Parker sighed. "Three of you stay here", he said to the Dover constables. "The rest of you come with me, please." Scanning the group who followed as they tramped up the gangway, he said softly to the largest one, who also had the advantage of a quick and sensible manner, "Whatever you do, don't let Lady Mary out of your sight, do you hear?" Exhilarated by the glamour and the responsiblilty which his morning was so unexpectedly affording, the constable nodded devoutly and affixed himself at once to Mary's side.

The Queen Esmerelda was a mid-sized channel crossing vessel, and far less luxurious than any Mary had ever sailed on. "The girl must be quite athletic to have climbed up out of a high train window, as we believe she did", Parker reminded the searchers as, having commandeered a plan of the vessel from the captain, he apportioned parts of the ship to each. "Look everywhere, no matter how outlandish a hiding place it may seem."

In the event, nobody had to do all that much searching. It was Mr Parker himself, few minutes into the search, who noticed the slight figure of the ship's boy quietly sorting through lengths of rope in the corner of the deck. The figure had contrived to fade away to another part of the ship as soon as a policeman appeared on the earlier, less organised, search but with at least one policeman in evidence in every corner of the desk, this wasn't a trick which could be repeated for long.

"Bless you, Lady Mary" Parker said (for she and her faithfully following constable had found themselves by his side as the search party dispersed) "for impressing upon us the narrowness of the suspect's shoulders. You there!" The figure froze, face turned away towards the sea.

"I am a police officer," Mr Parker said calmly, slowly approaching the figure, and adding quietly and rapidly to the Dover constable "Get in front of Lady Mary. We don't know that the suspect is unarmed." Mary was aware of a sudden lurching shock, and realised she'd never before felt even the slightest genuine fear for her life. A further and stronger shock hit her as it occurred to her that Charles was unarmed, and that nobody was standing in front of him.

With the swiftest of motions, the figure removed its sailor's cap, leapt up onto the heap of rope and, black hair flying out behind, propelled itself over board into the sea.

Parker felt that it was to his eternal credit that he didn't swear as he threw his jacket on the briny floor, with a mental apology to Bunter for the ill-treatment of his kindly loaned suit, and clambered up the heap of rope and over the edge of the ship. They were still in port and a dive would have been unsafe, although more elegant, so he had to settle for a clean jump. Mary scrambled up the heap of ropes after him and leaned over the side of the ship, breathlessly watching.

Lucy was trying to swim out to sea. Parker seldom swam, and his stamina would have failed him on any lengthy test, but for these purposes his size and power worked for him. He caught up with Lucy in a few strokes and swam out in front of her, blocking her way. There was a ridiculous pause as they both trod water, bobbing in the waves, and he considered how to make an arrest whilst using both his arms to stay afloat.

At last he said, maintaining as much official dignity as he could with salty water trickling down from his hair into his eyes "Lucy Watson, I arrest you in the name of the law for the murder of Harold Spicer. I warn you that anything you say may be used in evidence against you". There was a pause. Lucy looked at him with eyes that flitted from fury to a kind of madly reckless laughter, and back again. When Lucy made no move to speak, Parker added, "You see that you are surrounded by policemen, and that escape is impossible. You could swim yourself back to shore with me behind you, or I can take hold of you and force you back to the shore, in a manner unpleasant for us both. Which is it to be?"

Laughter won in Lucy's eyes, and erupted all over to her face. "A fine dignified spectacle that'd make for your fine lady, wouldn't it, 'aving to drag me kicking and screaming and splashing to shore! All right, I'll take pity on you and swim along quietly. But I aven't confessed to anything, 'ave I?"

It was impossible not to feel wrong-footed by his murder suspect presenting herself as a person granting him a favour. But Parker _was _hugely relieved not to have to forcibly and splashily manhandle Lucy back to shore. He began to understand a little of the gay charm which had drawn Lucy to Mary's attention, and indeed to the attention of a long list of men, some of whom were now dead. He swam behind her watchfully until they reached the ladder in the port wall, at the top of which twelve policemen and Lady Mary were waiting for them. Lucy heaved herself up, her sailor's clothes cascading rivers of water as she emerged from the sea. She climbed the ladder into the waiting handcuffs with a kind of gracious defiance, and Mary noticed that her eyes were still darting around. She didn't strike Mary as a person who had admitted defeat.

Mary's attention was distracted from these interesting thoughts by Charles emerging from the sea and up the ladder, his now transparent shirt and his trousers plastered back against his skin. It was a sight she never forgot until her dying day.

He gave her a quick half-smile and a shrug, as if to acknowledge the ridiculousness of the postion, before he fell into step with Inspector Beech as the constable led the prisoner off to a police car, to discuss the logistics of questioning and transporting the prisoner back to London. Mary stood watching, conscious of the tightening across her chest but not of the look on her face as she followed him with her eyes.

"Nothing like a bit of healthy sea-bathing to put colour in a man's cheeks, what?" Lord Peter remarked, coming up beside her. "That's all right", he added to the constable still standing as close beside Mary as respectful distance would allow, "I'm sure Detective-Inspector Parker doesn't intend you to shadow my sister now that our elusive criminal is no longer at large, you know." Mary looked up. She had neither heard Peter approached or registered the constable's presence. She thanked the constable vaguely and turned to Peter.

"Peter, wasn't that thrilling! Mr Parker was simply marvellous. I -"

"Oh, rather", Peter agreed, adding firmly, "but I've had several years to get used to his marvels, you know, as he has mine - so it doesn't strike one quite so frightfully much."

They stood at the Port watching policemen mill around purposefully around.

"Well, that's that, I suppose" sighed Lord Peter. "The fun part's over from my point of view. Unless the girl produces a cast-iron alibi for the nights of the crimes and we have to start again..." Peter was looking looked slightly wistful at the prospect when Mr Parker appeared again, no drier than he had been before. Mary bit her lip, and remarked to herself ironically that his forearms were now the least of her troubles.

"We're off to the police station. I expect things will be pretty procedural from now on - is there anything in it for you, Peter?"

Peter considered for a moment, looking at his sister. "I'd still rather like to know why she made an accomplice of Spicer in the first place, but I dare say you'll give me a suitably edited account of anything interesting that comes out of questioning, what? Perhaps we'd better tootle back to London, Mary. I sense that Charles would like the excuse to travel back in a nice tame police car."

Mr Parker didn't deny it. "I'll let you know what we get from her, of course. Thanks awfully."

"I'm not sure I had much to do with this one in the end," Peter said, "it didn't turn out to be such a jolly old head-scratcher as we first thought."

"I was talking to Lady Mary, you conceited ass." Parker smiled broadly at them both. "It would have taken much longer to make the connection with Lucy if you hadn't tipped us off, and I'd never have come straight down on the first reported sighting if you hadn't had the idea about Dover. The papers in a false name do make me think Lucy's had a flit in her back pocket for a while."

He shook Peter's hand and then took Mary's and pressed it. She felt oddly let down and slightly panicked at the realisation that there would be no reason for her to see him now, unless one of them were to create one. She wondered whether he would kiss her hand, as he had once at the railway station, but he didn't.

"I'd better go and collect Bunter's jacket - they're letting passengers back on. It may be that the laundry people can bring this suit back to life." Parker peeled salt-encrusted material from where it clung slimily to his thigh, doubtfully. "I'll get him a new one, anyway, Peter - tell him the Yard will pay, should he raise any objections." Mary watched him set off at a light jog.

"Couldn't he have sent one of the Dover constables to collect it for him?" Mary asked Peter, surprised.

"He could, But he wouldn't, not if he could just do it himself. That's the thing about Parker. I say, what shall we do now? He's not the only one who can go sea-bathing - shall we have a dip?"

"You're being facetious, Peter, but I've a good mind to take you up on that suggestion. But first of all, let's find somewhere to have a cup of tea."

——————

Mr Parker telephoned Mary two days later. She wasn't in. When she received his message on her return from Lady Bridlington's - where she had finally persuaded that lady to reach a sensible compromise in the matter of curtains, carpets and wallpapers - she telephoned straight back to the Yard and was put through to Detective-Inspector Parker's office.

"Hullo, Lady Mary." She could tell by his voice that he was not alone in his office, although it was hard to pinpoint what in his words or manner would have been different had he not been. He seemed to have reverted to using her title for good, she noticed, sadly.

"Good afternoon, Mr Parker", she replied. "I hope you're well? I've been worried about you catching a cold from wearing those wet clothes."

There was a pause. He seemed genuinely baffled at the idea that Lady Mary had considered the possibility of his health suffering any negative consequences from the events of two days' ago, or indeed that anyone had considered his health at all. In fact it was only half true. Mary had given a fair amount of thought to Charles Parker soaked to the skin in the morning sunshine, and the absurdly apologetic smile he had given her as if embarrassed by his own bravery and efficiency, but only a small part of that thought had had anything to do with his health.

"Oh no. Thank you. I soon dried off. It would have been a great deal less pleasant in the winter, of course."

There was a pause.

"Lady Mary, the prisoner says she'd like to speak to you," Parker continued. "You're under no obligation to see her, of course. In fact, I'd advise that you don't. From my experience when a criminal I've caught wants to speak to me, it's very seldom to shake my hand and tell me it's a fair cop. Mostly, things become personal and unleasant. It's a situation apt to produce bile and vengeful threats even in the best of people."

Mary gave this some thought. "Well, but I feel I should, somehow. She may want to ask me to do something for her mother. And after all, she _is_ a person, too, isn't she? I think I've sort of been forgetting that."

"So were Kloves and Spicer", Parker pointed out, gently. But Mary was determined, and Parker conceded cheerfully enough. "Right-ho. Well, she's at Holloway Prison - we've charged her, of course. I suppose Peter told you that her prints were a perfect match for the ones on the things in Spicer's bag, and for the door in Mr Kloves' house?"

"Yes", Mary said, sombrely. She saw that it was better for Charles' case that there should be no room for doubt as to the guilt of the prisoner, but thinking of Lucy's dancing eyes, she couldn't be glad of it. "I'll come tomorrow morning at half past ten."

"I'll meet you there, of course", Parker said, and although Mary had hoped and half-expected him to, the sudden knowledge that she would be seeing him the next day felt like the sun coming out from behind grey clouds.

"Until tomorrow then, Charles," she said, in a voice which conveyed more than she had intended. At the other end of the telephone wire, Parker felt the lines and edges of the world go hazy and diffuse around him. If he heard it twenty times a day for the rest of his life, the sound of his name on her lips would never cease to make his blood run hot in his veins.

"Until tomorrow, Mary." He hung up the telephone and stood staring into the distance until constable Meritt coughed respectfully to remind his superior officer of his presence.


	6. 6

Detective-Inspector Parker was, of course, waiting stolidly outside Holloway Prison when Lady Mary Wimsey alighted from her taxi at twenty-five to eleven the next day. Its dirty grey gothic towers looked less forbidding than usual in the relentless sunshine which the July of 1927 provided in such unexpected abundance, but it was nonetheless an imposing sight. Mary smiled at the sight of Charles, though, and it occurred to her that he had the gift of making the most alarming and extraordinary things seem manageable and almost ordinary. She thought of the many times over the previous week when the sight of him at an unexpected angle, somehow, or the sound of his voice saying perfectly ordinary things but in his own particular way, had made her catch her breath and she began to wonder whether he hadn't also the gift, for her at any rate, of making ordinary things extraordinary.

"Good morning, Mary," he said, and she could tell it had cost him some considerable effort to plunge into using her name and not her title, after the ebbs and flows - and rather more ebbing than flowing over the last two years - of their intimacy. She rewarded him with a radiant smile. She knew it to be radiant, partly because she was not given to the kind of false modesty which would have been required to disclaim her own obviously good looks, but partly because she could feel the strange alchemy of love - that force which lends beauty even to the plainest of faces - working within her.

"Good morning, Charles." They clasped each other's hands and looked into each other's eyes, he squinting slightly in the sun so that his eyes crinkled up delightfully. They were much like two fourteen year olds at the start of a day out to a funfair. Both had a great regard for dignity, and a strong sense that this scene didn't achieve it - but neither broke away.

At length, the world intruded upon them in the form of a small flow of people, mostly women, streaming out of the side door to the prison by which they were standing. "Morning visiting must have ended at half past ten" Charles said, letting go of Mary's hand, half-guiltily. "Miss Watson is held on remand, of course, so we have to visit her in the cells rather than in the visiting halls. Shall you be all right? Prisons can be rather harrowing places."

"Poor old Gerald's been in one, so I should think I could visit one", Mary said, and she set her jaw determinedly and walked towards the door. All the same, she was not sure how it would have felt without the palpably reassuring presence of Charles Parker as they were shown in by a grim looking guard and led down a series of gloomy corridors.

The cell which had been allocated for Lucy to receive Lady Mary was not unpleasant, containing four hard chairs, and a small table with a vase of wilting violets upon it. But it was like nothing Mary had seen before. Charles said "Lady Mary Wimsey is here to see you, Miss Watson", went in and sat neutrally and implacably on one of the chairs, nodding civilly to the female guard stationed on the chair opposite. Mary had no idea how to greet her unlikely hostess under these circumstances, and knew she would fail if she tried to echo Charles's completely matter-of-fact tones when confronted with a person she had liked brought to such an abject position. She relied on the approach which had served her, like many other pretty women, well on various occasions. She stood in the doorway and waited until due attention was paid to her.

Lucy Watson looked at her. Her prison-issue clothes were drab and she had no make-up on, but it made surprisingly little difference to her looks. Her eyes were still defiant, and not without humour.

"Why did you 'ave to get involved with the police and give me away?" she demanded without preamble. She sounded curious rather than angry. "Why couldn't you 'ave left well enough alone, when I'd done you no 'arm?"

Mary was so surprised that she started to laugh. "But Lucy, you surely can't think that you should have been allowed to go about killing people with impunity! That it was wrong for people to find out who killed those men and being the person to justice?"

"Justice my elbow", scoffed Lucy. "If they adn't been killed, what do you suppose they'd be doing as we sit 'ere now? Pressing themselves on young girls without the power to resist them, that's what, and you know it. What justice for all the girls who've 'ad to get free from the advances of men like them, or for the ones who aven't got free? I never 'ad no intention of killing that old lecher Kloves, nor would I 'ave if 'e'd just changed 'is will back to 'is son. But when I 'eard about 'ow 'e wanted to leave it all to the new parlourmaid, and 'er barely 15, I knew what it meant and I knew what to do about it."

Mary was silent awhile, and she slowly sat down on the remaining chair, opposite Lucy. She had not considered this angle before and she looked at Charles. His face was carefully expressionless but knowing him well, she detected some hint of scepticism in his bearing. Lucy saw her looking and snorted. Such was her charm that the snort was rather a pleasing sound.

"No use telling the likes of 'im. No man's 'ad to 'ide in corners to avoid being alone with someone they're bound to obey, 'as 'e? But every woman 'as. Well, every woman that's poor."

"I suspect every woman of every class has had cause to fear the sort of thing you mean, even if some of us are shielded from the worse extremes of it by our position", Mary said, quietly. Half-suppressed moments of fear and rage and humiliation, at balls and war hospitals, and at Bolshevik meetings and hunt gatherings, and every place where a man had fed his own ego by exerting power over her and her friends, bubbled up inside her. For a moment she felt allied with Lucy and she was conscious of a kind of sick hatred even towards Charles Parker - who she knew without a doubt to be the kindest man she'd ever met - for his very maleness, though it had thrilled her minutes before, for his powerful body and the freedom with which he moved about the world, for the seriousness with which he was taken.

"I originally asked my brother whether he could look in at Mrs Schmidt's to see whether you were all right", she said, finally. "It was after you made her say she that you were working when you weren't, and she lied so clumsily that I was worried that something had happened to you. I had no notion of discovering anything which would implicate you. And my brother is great friends with Mr Parker, you see, so that was how it came to the police." Explaining that her intentions had been friendly towards Lucy seemed the only thing she could do, to express some kind of solidarity for at least some of what Lucy had said. "But if you hadn't been blackmailing poor Mrs Schmidt then I would never have said anything, you know," she couldn't help pointing out.

"Blackmailing indeed" Lucy replied, scornfully. "Can't call it blackmailing if I'd never 'ave breathed the secret to a soul even if she 'adn't done as I asked, can you? Anyway, she's got loads of money and never spends a shilling she can 'elp, so it did 'er good."

Mary was still grappling with the perverse logic of this view when Lucy added "D'you want to know what 'er secret was, anyway? Talk about a storm in a teacup!"

Lady Mary sighed, and couldn't help wishing briefly that Charles had not chivalrously insisted on accompanying her to the interview. She could see the corners of his eyes crinkle ever so slightly as he fought down a smile when she said "Of course I want to know, but don't tell me. I know it wouldn't do you, me or Mrs Schmidt any good if you did."

Lucy looked from Lady Mary to Charles and back again with that odd kindly but mocking knowingness which constituted a large part of her charm.

"Well, I won't tell you, then", Lucy said, comfortably. "The joke is it's nothing fearful. If people were just 'onest about these things then they'd save themselves a deal of trouble, that's what I say."

"Anyway", Lady Mary continued, again slightly wrong-footed by Lucy positioning herself as a moral compass, "Ch- Mr Parker would have worked it all out regardless, you know. He'd be bound to investigate the person who inherited under the old will when a man is killed just before making a new one."

"That's why I needed Mrs Schmidt to say I'd been at work the day before and the day after, isn't it?" Lucy spoke carelessly, as if the unraveling of her plans and her eventual capture did not really matter.

"Lucy, why did you get Mr Spicer involved at all?" Mary asked, suddenly, remembering Peter's question. "I don't see what he added apart from brute force, which you hardly needed for a drugged old man."

"Would you believe," Lucy responded with a gleam in her eye that showed the irony wasn't lost on her, "it was for me tender 'eart? I never thought I'd be able to look a man in the face and kill 'im, no matter 'ow deserving of it 'e may be. But I saw that Spicer do it, and it just struck me that there was nothing to it. There really isn't, you know. And I took that bottle of sleeping stuff from Kloves' bedside with the feeling that it might come in 'andy. So when Spicer started 'is tricks later that same day - I'd already promised 'im a third of the money when it came in, but 'e was on at me to run away with 'im. 'E let on like 'e was passionately in love with me, but to my mind 'e just didn't want me out of 'is sight before 'e'd got the money. Not that I really blame 'im for that", she added, fairly. "But I found I couldn't stand the eyes and 'ands of one more stinking man upon me and so I told 'im I knew of a night train from Victoria and we'd lie low in Brighton for a bit, and I gave 'im a beer with the sleeping stuff in it, and we got on the train. I thought if I left the key and crawled out through the window then it might look like 'e'd done it 'imself, maybe, or 'appened naturally."

"Why didn't you leave his bag with him, though? You must have realised it would look suspicious."

"I changed into some of the clothes 'e'd brought with him - a boy alone at night attracts a lot less notice than a girl, after all, so I 'ad to get my dress away. It was that nice red and yellow piece dress I took from Mrs Schmidt - it's a lovely cut, Lady Mary, that I will say."

Again, Mary had the odd sensation of being condescended to by the disgraced prisoner, but found herself pleased by the compliment nonetheless.

"That was sensible", Mary admitted. "Nobody ever remembered seeing anyone that evening." Mr Parker's expression became anguished and he shook his head ever so slightly. Lucy laughed.

"Don't worry, detective, you've got your prints, 'aven't you? Nothing I find out now can 'elp me explain them away. That's Spicer's fault, too, that I left them at the Kloves 'ouse. 'E dropped one of 'is gloves somewhere in a field between the inn and the 'ouse, so I gave 'im mine. It should've been all right, as I wasn't supposed to be touching anything, just showing the way and keeping a look-out. But that fool almost let the bedroom door bang shut, and I 'ad to grab it. I wouldn't make the mistake of getting 'elp from someone like that again, _that's _for sure."

Mary didn't know what to reply. It seemed tactless to point out that surely Lucy wouldn't have the opportunity to make many mistakes of that or any other nature. "Lucy, is there anything you'd like me to do, for your mother, perhaps?"

"Very kind of you to offer, my lady," Lucy said in her tone which was as likeable as it was irreverent, "but she's got my brothers to look after 'er. I just wanted to know why you got involved in the first place. It bothered me that it should be a woman what brought me down. It's settled my mind to know you never meant any of this to 'appen."

Mary stood up, and shook hands with Lucy. They were both tall and slender women, one fair and one dark. Parker thought they looked like a pre-raphaelite painting of particularly heavy symbolism as they stood in the heavily filtered sunlight of the small room.

Mr Parker escorted Lady Mary out of Holloway Prison and back out into the sunshine in silence. They stood outside, not looking at each other. At length, Parker said gently, "She prepared those travel papers under a fake name several weeks ago, you know, Mary. And why did she take the key at the station on Friday night if it really didn't occurr to her to kill Spicer until he behaved boorishly on Tuesday?"

"Yes, I know", Mary said hesitantly. "But I think there _is _some truth in what she says - well, at least, that the kinds of experiences she must have contributed to what she did."

"Plenty of people have a rotten time of it in various ways without committing murder," Parker pointed out.

"Yes, but they shouldn't have to! These girls shouldn't have to put up with men preying on them, nobody should. How is it right that Lucy's brought to justice when, other than by her crime, the men never are? Why is one enormous crime punishable by death when the silent oozing of the horridness of those men into the world meets no punishment at all?"

Mr Parker stood silent for a while. "I'll see if Lucy's mentioned this line of hers to her solicitor and her brief. It obviously doesn't change anything about whether she's guilty of the crime, but I expect in the right hands it may be able to lead somewhere on sentencing. Peter's got her Sir Impey Biggs, you know. If anyone can make something of it, it's him."

"Good old Peter", Mary said, vaguely. She felt cold, despite the sunshine.

"Excuse me, Mr Parker, Sir," a young man's voice spoke behind them. They turned and recognised Fred Gibson.

"D'you know whether I'd be allowed to go in? Y'know, and see Lucy?" He nodded towards the prison.

"You'll have to give your witness statement to the crown first, I should think", Parker said. "After that, it'll be up to the prison staff." Looking at Fred's pale and pinched face, he added, kindly "If you care to write to her, care of my office at Scotland Yard, I can see that she gets it. Someone will have to read it first, but I can arrange for it to be someone other than me - someone who's never met either of you - if that's more comfortable for you." Fred looked slightly downcast at the prospect of further correspondence, but nodded gratefully, and went on his way. He appeared to be pacing around the prison, looking up at all the windows for Lucy's face.

Mary watched him. "Poor Clare Jenkins", she said, half to herself. "I don't think Fred will forget Lucy in a hurry."

"No," agreed Charles. He seemed to be speaking half to himself, too. "He may turn out to be one of those men who can only love one woman all of their lives, however hopelessly. Poor lad." His voice was softer and his vowels more Northern as he spoke the last two words than Mary had heard before. She looked up at him and blushed.

At length he said "I've a lovely spate of burglaries on the go now, and I need to spend the afternoon following up an idea I've had about them. But it must be nearly lunch time. Would you like...?"

Mary smiled for the first time since they had entered the prison. "Oh Charles," she said, "you and your noontime lunches! I know, I know, you get up hours earlier than I do. As a matter of fact, I haven't breakfasted today. Let's have some kind of odd hybrid meal together."

He gave her his arm, and they set off down the road in the sun.


End file.
